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Please Explain: What Do Organic Labels Mean?

In Please Explain, we set aside time every Friday afternoon to get to the bottom of one complex issue. We'll back up and review the basic facts and principles of complicated issues across a broad range of topics — history, politics, science, you name it.

Thomas Bjorkman, professor of horticulture at Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, and Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director, Consumer Safety and Sustainability Group at Consumer Reports, discuss what the organic label indicates about how food is grown, and what the various animal welfare labels indicate about how meat or eggs were bred and raised.

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Comments [24]

Thomas Björkman

Reply to Victoria regarding costs and subsidies: The situation isn't quite like you describe it.

Both conventional and organic farmers participate in programs that cost money and programs that provide subsidies. Organic certification costs are currently subsidized. There are also support programs intended specifically to encourage organic practices.

It is up to you to decide whether you think there is a fair deal. In fact, the fairness of the many programs is being hotly debated in Congress as they seek to pass a Farm Bill. But organic farmers do get a piece of the pie because they have a strong voice in Washington.

In response to Tony regarding hydroponics, the answer is no. Here's what the NOSB has to say on the subject:"[Because] organic farming [is] based upon [the] foundation of sound management of soil biology and ecology, it becomes clear that systems of crop production that eliminate soil from the system, such as hydroponics or aeroponics, can not be considered as examples of acceptable organic farming practices."

International organic has a certain edge over national organic. Why? Because the US is far more industrialized in approach in regards to agriculture in general, conventional and organic.

In say, rural India or China, parts of Europe and South America, they aren’t so industrialized to begin with. They have the workforce for hand labor, are accustomed to it, and can’t really afford much agricultural technology.

Sure, there’s some concerns about use of older cheaper pesticides that make it to such rural production markets, and concerns about oversight, but in general, international organic in lesser developed areas is fine.

Maybe you don’t want organic strawberries from China since they won’t really ship well, but rice, beans, teas and such, goods that ship dried, will be perfectly fine.

Also, shipping of such goods internationally doesn’t have much environmental impact (excluding air shipping) due toefficiencies of scale and all that.

Olkin also accepted money from the tobacco industry’s Council for Tobacco Research, according to letters dating back to 1976.

“I learned, in visiting with Dr. Olkin, that he would like to examine the theoretical structure of the "multivariate logistic risk function." This particular statistical technique has been employed in the analysis of the Framingham study of heart disease,” wrote William W. Shinn, a lawyer with Shook Hardy & Bacon who represented the tobacco industry's Committee of Counsel at the time. “He is asking for two years of support at the rate of $6,000 per year …

jim from Niagara Co. NY:“yes, there is no rule that does not allow an organic farmer from aerial applying organically approved products. I reality, aerial applications are not used as much in agriculture as they use to be and it would not be used to spray a small area.”

Thanks jim, I actually already knew the answer to the question to a certain extent, but I thought it would be a good wedge to open up the discussion of organic pesticides and application since it’s often assumed that organic is pesticide free.

There's a 3rd reason to buy organic products, in addition to not wanting to consume antibiotices & synthetic pesticides & fertilizers individually & wanting to reduce the effect of these substances on the earth: wanting to create & expand the market for products so more of them will be grown & they'll make up a greater proportion of all the food that's grown.

regarding the social and environmental benefits of organic agricultural production methods vs standard practices which rely heavily on pesticides look at the rate of illness and life expectancies of cotton farmers in the third world, countries such as Pakistan.

Can your guests comment on the recent news concerning the new Stanford study, that is the relationships between Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, which supports the researchers, and the chemical and agribusiness industry?

yes, there is no rule that does not allow an organic farmer from aerial applying organically approved products. I reality, aerial applications are not used as much in agriculture as they use to be and it would not be used to spray a small area.

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